Suggested TV readying for next stage

The ‘all-in-one’ OTT provider Easel TV said it would welcome investors to take it to the next stage of its development following the recent completion of its horizontal OTT platform, Suggested TV.

CEO Joe Foster said it has taken the company around four to six years of development work to perfect the software-as-a-service (SaaS) product. On its blog, Easel TV said total development costs amounted to about £4 million.

It is now at a point where it is able to provide a fully developed, multi-tenant, licenced OTT service that provides content owners with an off-the-shelf platform to create their own OTT video service.

“Building a horizontal solution is not easy,” said Foster, “but it was an important part of the company’s ambition to make OTT an obvious and easy choice for its customers, which include Curzon Home Cinema and hayu.”

Phil Mordecai, director of Curzon Home Cinema, said Suggested TV allows his company to get on with running our business. “We focus on the editorial mix, the marketing and the analysis of our performance without having to worry about the technology,” he said.

Easel TV has also been able to move into different sectors such as hotels: in 2015 it launched a TV service called Airtime for Airwave, which supplies, installs and integrates digital hotel televisions, signage and audiovisual equipment.

It also built a linear brand channel for mobile phone manufacturer HTC, initially to support the launch of a new product. “It opens up the market for other brands as well,” added Foster, noting that he had one on board and a further two in discussions.